Literary Lines–July 16

“Maybe you think you’re just one person. What you do doesn’t really matter. You can read a few tweets or blog posts and then publicly render your judgment of a total stranger. Who cares? You’re just one tiny voice in a huge ocean. But the thing about tiny voices is that when they band together they can be incredibly loud. Uncomfortably loud. Sometimes that’s a good thing–a strong thing. A group of voices can wake people up to the truth. But a group of voices can be a bad thing too, because we’re not always right. Or even when we are right, sometimes the things we do to each other still aren’t okay.

Sometimes we bandwagon, we jump to conclusions, we point fingers at people, because it seems fun or makes us feel like part of something. Maybe we do it because we feel angry or powerless and it gives us the illusion of control. But we don’t think about what it’s like when you just need a few minutes of peace and everywhere you look people are judging you. We don’t think about what it would be like if you just needed a reason to keep going and instead you got a bunch of reasons why you should go die.”